Officium Defunctorum (Requiem)

Tomas Luis de Victoria 1548?-1611

Sunday 17 September 1989, 8pm

The Spanish priest Tomas Luis de Victoria was, along with Lassus and Palestrina, one of the triumvirate of great composers working in Rome at the end of the 16th century. He returned home to Spain to serve as private chaplain for the Empress Maria, whose death in 1603 inspired Victoria to write his finest work, the six-part Officium Defunctorum, or Requiem. This performance of the Requiem Mass aimed to place it in something close to its original context by interspersing Victoria's polyphonic movements with the proper plainsong chants.

Programme

Attempting to place Victoria's polyphonic movements within an "authentic" Requiem Mass reconstruction required a certain amount of conjecture: in particular, the placing of the motets Taedet Animan Meam and Versa est in Luctum is not clear from the original publication. A certain editorial license was also used to include a further magnificent setting of the funeral motet Versa est in Luctum written for the funeral of Philip II by Victoria's greatest Spanish contemporary, Alonso Lobo.